West Should Give Up on Mugabe

Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe is no longer even pretending to govern by law. Defying a supreme court injunction issued earlier this month, his government is speeding up the wholesale seizure of white-owned farms. He has ignored appeals from the United Nations and widespread warnings that the land grab will spell economic ruin for the country.

Popular discontent is growing and so is Mugabe’s campaign to suppress it. Yet opposition led by Morgan Tsvangirai of the Movement for Democratic Change carries on. Washington and its Western allies should give up on Mugabe and throw their weight behind those who seek to oust him.

Tsvangirai may be too optimistic in predicting Mugabe will be out by Christmas. True, against all odds he rallied enough support in last June’s election to win 57 of the 120 contested seats in parliament, and he shows great personal courage in defying Mugabe’s threats. But as long as the military sides with the president, the opposition has little chance of forcing him out of office.

Twenty years ago Mugabe was the hero of Zimbabwe’s struggle for independence from Britain. Today he is a corrupt autocrat leading the country to certain ruin. His illegal land expropriation program, enforced by soldiers and thugs acting in the name of the ruling ZANU-PF party, is undermining Zimbabwean agriculture, the mainstay of the economy. The nation is bankrupt, unable to pay its creditors or even salaries of government employees; inflation hovers at 70%. The 2,000 farmers whose land is being seized are to be paid in worthless government IOUs.

As in Ivory Coast, where a popular uprising last month ousted a military dictator, Tsvangirai’s movement in Zimbabwe finds inspiration in the peaceful overthrow of Slobodan Milosevic in Yugoslavia. He pins his hope for a quick ouster of Mugabe on a series of planned demonstrations and strikes.

The United States and other governments unhappy with Mugabe’s disastrous policies should stop paying friendly visits to Harare, the capital. Clearly, it is up to the people of Zimbabwe to rid themselves of their discredited leader, but they will need the same backing, moral and financial, the West gave to Milosevic’s opponents.